U.S. Mafia Alliance

How do we decide when we can sacrifice the morals and ethics of our legal system and social structure? One good study would be that of Lucky Luciano,a gangland thug who committed about every crime imaginable, only to work out a deal with the U.S. government to allow him to continue his criminal ways while in jail in exchange for favors to help with the war efforts during World War II.

Salvatore Lucania also known as Lucky Luciano was born November 24, 1897. He was one of the most famous Italian gangsters of the 20th century. He earned the name lucky during an incident in 1929 which left him with his throat slit, and he miraculously survived it. Luciano grew up in Lercara Friddi, Sicily and in 1906 at the age of ten immigrated with his family to New York.

As Luciano grew up he became involved in organized crime. He became associated and worked for some of the most famous mafia thugs of the time. He also was a member of the Five Points gang lead by John Torrio. Later Luciano became chairman of the board of an organized crime group called “the commission”. The commission was a group of professional hit men. Soon after the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, an attorney named Thomas E. Dewey who had been investigating Luciano, took him to court for suspicion of running an extremely large prostitution ring in New York City. Luciano was found guilty and sent to prison for 30 to 50 years. While in prison Luciano was allowed by the authorities to remain active in the everyday running of his mafia business from his prison cell as a reward for his help during WWII.

During WWII, the Germans took advantage of their use of submarines. They ended up sinking more than 200 American ships off the East Coast of the United States. After the ship “Normandie” was destroyed in New York harbor, the U.S. Navy was suspicious that the Germans were involved and asked Luciano for his help. America moved him from the Clinton Prison in Dannemora, New York to the Great Meadows prison in New York. Lucky was able to convince a few of his associates to help with security at the New York Docks. This made it harder for the Germans to sink and sabotage American ships and easier for America’s allies to ship supplies back and forth. Later in time it was discovered that the Normandie’s destruction was caused by a fire which was started by accident. Shortly after the U.S. Navy asked Luciano to help with the protection of New York’s docks, they asked him for another favor. Knowing that Luciano still had good connections with the Italian and Sicilian mafias, America needed help with their allies’ quest to invade Sicily, this was called Operation Husky. Operation Husky took Benito Mussolini out of power. During this time the man that had put Luciano in jail, Thomas E. Dewey, had become governor of New York. Dewey decided that as a reward for all of his help he would let Luciano go free. Though Luciano was no longer held behind bars he still had one price to pay. He was deported and required to move back to Sicily forever. It was said that Luciano enjoyed giving back to his Country and during the time that he was still in United States he was approached and admired by many U.S. military men like he was a movie star.

What lengths will society go to achieve success in pursuit for what it believes is right and moral, and in some cases self serving. These days we hear about water boarding as a means of getting information from our enemies. We read terrorists their so called Miranda Rights, and we put them on trial in New York City for the entire world to see, rather than using a simple military procedure.

This is quite a change from the days of the Italian Mafia, and it's far reaching power over so much of our society.